The diversity and complexity of nervous system is one of the significant topics in Neurosciences. Over the past few decades, there has been a growing interest related to the heterogeneity of neural cells. In our lab, we focus on the heterogeneity of neural progenitor cells (NPC). NPCs give rise to distinct neural cell types at embryonic and adult different stages increasing the neural diversity in the brain.

Using a multi-color genetic lineage tracing system, StarTrack, we specifically targeted progenitor cells, to analyze the cell type and location of the adult cell-derived progeny. StarTrack labelled cells exhibited different neural phenotypes and their location at different cortical regions was used to classified them in relation to the targeted embryonic area.

In that experiement, the plasmids of UbC-StarTrack were injected in the lateral ventricles and transfected using in utero electroporation (IUE) at very early stages (E10-E12) to permanently label the individual progenitor cells and their cell progeny. Data were analyzed at adult ages (P30 onwards) displaying labeled cells located in the gray and white matter.

Those cells corresponded to different neural types (astrocytes, oligondendrocytes, NG2 and even neurons) grouped into diverse clonal patterns in relation to their cell identity. Our findings provide fundamental aspects of the lineage potential, cell fate determination and heterogeneity of NPC.

Supported by research Grant BFU2016-75207-R from MINECO

References:

¹ María Figueres-Oñate, Mario Sánchez-Villalón, Rebeca Sánchez-González and Laura López-Mascaraque. Lineage Tracing and Clonal cell Dynamics of postnatal progenitor cells in vivo. Stem Cell Reports. 13: 700-712. (2019).
² Rebeca Sánchez-González, María Figueres-Oñate, Ana Cristina Ojalvo-Sanz and Laura López-Mascaraque. Cell progeny in the olfactory bulb after targeting specific progenitors using different UbC-StarTrack approaches. Genes 11, 305; doi: 10.3390/genes11030305. (2020).
³ Rebeca Sánchez-González, Ana Bribián, Laura López-Mascaraque. Cell Fate Potential of NG2 Progenitors. Sci Rep 10, 9876. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-66753-9. (2020).